changes

***disclaimer: this was our experience and is no way meant to speak ill of anyone. we want to share our journey and what we learned from it. we know that others have had different experiences, and we are grateful for the ways that they have been helped and loved.***

we started with bethany in atlanta. starting the adoption process is like buying a house for the first time. i will never forget how overwhelmed i felt by all of the lingo and verbiage that was thrown around that i was somehow supposed to understand when we bought our house. interest rates, inspections, closing dates, countering an offer...i felt like i had been thrown into the deep end without floaties for the first time. the adoption world has its own rules and terminology. dossier, placement, background checks--all of these things that i had no idea what they meant, and i was supposed to get started on them. as the type A person in our marriage, i was in charge of paperwork. yes, there's alot of it. no, it's not horrible. it's mostly a matter of just doing it. which is the challenge. but i am digressing. i'll write more about paperwork later. basically, i was swimming in deep waters and really really wanted someone to coach me through the process. i wanted and needed an advocate. somebody who had our back.

our frustration with bethany was simple. nothing terrible, but frustrating nonetheless. they took days to return a phone call. sometimes longer. and these were for the very simple beginning questions that i had. it was obvious that we weren't going to get the kind of support that we wanted. i figured if it was this hard to find things out at the beginning, it would only be more frustrating as time went on. so after about a month or two of working with bethany, we decided to find another agency.

i remember feeling like time was slipping away. we had "a plan." we had a timeline. we knew when the paperwork needed to be done in order for us to be in the system to get a child by the time we thought would work best for our family. one thing that i have learned over and over in the past two years is that God will even use my procrastination for His purposes. He is the redeemer...the one who buys back what is broken, wasted, abandoned. and i am so glad.

so where to now? we were clueless. time to start looking for an agency again.